Michael Workman

Legend has it that Barbie doll creator Ruth Handler took her inspiration from an altogether different type of doll known as the "Bild Lili," a German doll marketed as a sex toy for men. These dolls, in turn, were based on the dolls built during the Second World War for the sexual relief of male German and Japanese soldiers. Dolls, in fact, are a significant part of modern sexual history, since the fifties mostly acknowledged in popular cinema for comic relief. Most reference the blowup vinyl versions, with their gaping "o" mouths and Gumby-like hands, and beyond that it's "Cherry 2000," "Mannequin," and "The Stepford Wives." But a certain subculture exists in online chat forums such as www.dollforum.com, with its nearly 15,000 members, to discuss the kinds of doll-ownership pleasures depicted in a new exhibition of photography by Elena Dorfman opening Friday at the River North neighborhood's Schneider Gallery.

Last year Dorfman published the book, "Still Lovers," a collection of portraits of modern silicone-based dolls and their owners. Silicone dolls are the most recent--and most realistic--variant on the love-doll theme to date, at least until engineers manage to harness the power of robotics and artificial intelligence to manufacture the world's first fully replicant human, a la Sean Young's character Rachel from "Blade Runner." And those who doubt it's in the works should pay a visit to Android World (www.androidworld.com) for a look at "Valerie," a first-generation "domestic" model.

Dorfman's research has focused on the more passive version, manufactured domestically, according to one online source, by companies like "1st-PC, Mimicon and Realdoll; and in Japan by Paper Moon, 4Woods, Orient Industries and others." Sex dolls have flourished in Japan, alongside the proliferation of "love hotels," with one Japanese enthusiast, known only as Ta-Bo, keeping an online inventory of his hundreds of dolls at www.dolldataroom.org. Realdoll (www.realdoll.com), the gold standard in silicone dolls and the one most often depicted in Dorfman's images, uses a skeleton made of PVC and steel joints that are highly poseable, but also highly expensive, selling for nearly $7,000 each. They're frighteningly realistic and images from Dorfman's site at www.still-lovers.com depict a highly complex emotional relationship between the dolls and their owners. Dorfman finds much precedent for these kinds of relationships, citing on her Web site the work of "Bellmer, Duchamp, Masson and others who painted and photographed adolescent dolls they made up, mostly to dismember and encage." She draws parallels to human "origin" myths, such as the Adam and Eve story, in which the female of the story inevitably suffers a fall from grace.

"In all tales," she writes, "the human female starts out as a creature of perfection made by the gods for the pleasure of men. But as soon as she comes alive and exhibits her thirst for knowledge, she becomes a source of suffering and death. Men, afraid of the impulses women inspire, set out to rectify this by creating their own women: statues, mannequins, dolls and dolls that function for sexual pleasure." It's counterintuitive to read a feminist impulse into these images, but as the artist, it makes all the more sense that this should be her approach. But it's Dorfman's ability to capture the odd mix of sexual pathology and visual frankness that gives her photographs a veneer less of documentary than an investigation of the grotesque and macabre of the male sexual psyche, through a pan-surrealistic lens. In that, it's a show well worth experiencing.

Changing Roles

Bruits about landlord issues at the Ukrainian Village's 40000 Gallery were born out by a May 15 press release on the gallery's Web site. Stating that the building where director Britton Betran spent so much time and effort building out a white-cube exhibition space had come under "new ownership," the gallery has announced plans to relocate to the West Loop's "119 N. Peoria St.," to "a building which already hosts Bodybuilder & Sportsman, Bucket Rider, Wendy Cooper Gallery and ThreeWalls." Coincidentally, Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery announced at around the same time through a press release on its Web site that director Tony Wight will soon "begin construction on a new gallery space located adjacent to our current space on the second floor." 40000 Gallery will reopen in its new location with a show slated for July 14; Bodybuilder and Sportsman will wait a while longer, reopening with a new exhibition in September.

Elena Dorfman shows at Schneider Gallery, 230 West Superior Street, (312)988-4033, through July 7.

(2006-05-23)

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